Carry It Forward: Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

Imagine if Frodo Baggins did not have the rest of the fellowship in his quest to destroy the ring of power. In the movie The Lord of the Rings, which actually is a trilogy, Frodo embarks on a quest to throw back the evil ring of Sauron in the heart of Mount Doom, the highest mountain in the desert wasteland of Mordor. However, what if he died before he threw the ring in?

This is where the 5 obstructions would come into play...

Using the idea that 5 Obstructions used for the film "The Perfect Human" by Jorgen Leth, I believe it would be interesting and provocative if the same method were applied to altering the trilogy that so many people of the world know and love. The director and primary screenwriter, Peter Jackson, would be taking the role of Jorgen Leth, as the one that has to fulfill the obstructions given by the obstructionist. In my mind, Von Trier would be replaced by the Wachowski Brothers. I think the obstructions given by the Wachowski Brothers to Peter Jackson would result in some mind blowing alterations of The Lord of the Rings.

Another idea would be to pick 5 well known directors, such as the Wachowski Brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, and Quentin Tarantino, and each give Peter Jackson an obstruction or a set of obstructions for remaking the movie. That would be spectacular.

The influence of each obstruction upon the movie would reshape the the entire story arc. Events that happened in the original movie that people know so well could be completely changed, offering a brand new story in a visually different medium. These 5 directors are hugely different from each other, and their obstructions would be hugely incomparable. This incomparability would offer 5 new perspectives of one of my favorite movies of all time, from the obstructions of 5 of my favorite directors of all time.

Recreating this epic story in 5 new, different ways would allow people to delve into and experience Frodo's journey in ways that even the story's original author, J.R.R. Tolkien might not have imagined. Even so, I am sure that he would have appreciated a visual understanding of the different perspectives of his fiction by some of the greatest visual experts that ever lived. The 5 Obstructions: The Lord of the Rings is an amazing idea to put into action. It adds new and exciting ways to interpret the original journey to destroy the ring, while preserving, appreciating, and spreading its original magic.

Change of Mind: "The Perfect Human"

This film was one of the weirdest films I have ever seen. I usually do not experience art that does not literally speak to me right away, as this one does. Jorgen Leth has created something that I still have trouble describing. When I first saw the film, I was fascinated by what the narrator was going to show the audience next because I enjoyed watching the actor and actress act whatever the narrator said on the screen. I also wondered why the narrator chose to pick the actions that he did. Soon, I realized that the narrator was trying to give perspective on the abilities that the human body can do. Leth was trying to show what we take advantage of daily by putting an emphasis on each individual action, even sometimes repeating them.

This film changed the way I saw simplicity in the movies. These days, most movies that come out are all filled with CGI, special effects, and computers. The balance between actual acting and computer technology has been leaning towards the computer technology. This movie, "The Perfect Human," allowed me to appreciate actual acting. There were no special effects in this movie, but its appeal and effect were as large as a movie that has them. This is due to the acting. Simple acting allowed me to appreciate what Leth was trying to tell the viewer. Whatever his actual reason was, I was able to interpret it to my own desire with the aid of the simple and articulate acting of the actors. I very much enjoyed this thought provoking film, and have started to research older movies, ones that had less of an emphasis on CGI and more of an emphasis on pure, great acting.

Challenging The Status Quo

It is necessary to challenge status quo thinking to the fullest extent. People of the world share different ideas and different viewpoints on topics, issues, answers, and questions. These viewpoints need to be released to the world because the objective is to NOT have a status quo. Even though we do have a status quo for almost every thing and every part of our society, the goal should be to remove that status quo. Even though status quos will probably never be removed, they will change over time. This change is necessary in order to fit with newer generations. Going back to the necessity of challenging the status quo...The degree that is necessary is infinite because this challenging is what fuels change and revolution. This challenging fuels the changing times. This challenging should not be suppressed because people are always going to have different methods to challenge status quos, so they will automatically be suppressed. Challenging status quo is a welcoming sign of change.

The degree in which it is possible to challenge status quo thinking is infinite until that challenge becomes the new status quo. Since challenging status quo brings about change and revolution, that challenging will continue until it becomes the NEW status quo. The moment it becomes the new status quo is the moment that it is done being challenged. It is when someone else will begin to challenge it because it is the status quo. In conclusion, the actual amount of times status quo is challenged is infinite, but the amount of time that a status quo is challenged is finite.

Best Of Week: "Bootleg Culture"

The best topic of this week was Bootleg Culture because of the ensuing discussion we had in class about the 'validity' of remixes and mash-ups. I am completely for these types of creative expression because I believe putting a remix together or putting a mash-up together requires more than just "Highlight, Control C, Control V, Press Play." It takes a lot more effort than that. When I listen to remixes of songs, I always note the differences because thats what makes the remix good. If the remix sounded just like the original, then I wouldn't have a care for it and would probably not bother to listen to it. But since remixes are made to sound different than the original except for the main themes, I do care about it because it shows me the interpretation of the original song that the remixer had. I appreciate that. I can connect these "interpretations" with solos and cadenzas on the violin. A well known concerto that has been played over and over by people since the times it was written years and years ago is played with different styles and musical elements by every single violinist. Every violinist puts crescendos, accents, tempo changes, volume changes, bowing changes, etc. wherever it feels right to them in the piece. This is their interpretation.

Going back to remixes and mash-ups, putting these tracks out there for the world to see should be perfectly legitimate because 1) It is a type of art, and art is meant to be shared and interpreted in their own way by everyone and 2) It is a form of "original song advertising" because listeners of remixes and mash-ups wonder what the original songs are, and end up looking them up and checking them out as well. If they like the original song and the original band, the remixer has successfully shared his/her own art while simultaneously advertising for the original artist, benefiting both.

Mash-ups and remixes are not simply 'cut, copy, and paste.' They take time, effort, and a grasp of music theory as well if they are to appeal to the listener. In an age of widespread opportunity to get your hands on audio editing software, they are inevitable and should be welcomed instead of shunned.

Best of Week: "The Myths" - Sophie's World

My favorite chapter so far in Sophie's World is "The Myths."


Mythology has always intrigued me ever since I was in middle school. I have read countless books on Norse, Greek, Indian, Arabic, and Egyptian mythology because I love reading about the beliefs of civilizations of the past. I had not expected mythology to be a contributor to the "history of philosophy" as told by Jostein Gaarder. I was enthused when I read about Thor's hammer and Odin and Freyja because as I read their names and their little "myths," I kept thinking to myself, "oh yeah, I remember reading about them before!" Because of my past knowledge of mythology, I enjoyed reading how Gaarder used Norse mythology to deliver argument on philosophy. He talked about how myth was essentially created in order to answer the questions that philosophers strive to discover. Much is the same about religion, science, and the arts. I believe mythology is and was a prime factor in the history of philosophy, whether it be from civilizations of the past like the Scandinavians or Greeks, or the mythology of the religions of the world.


In the past, people have agreed or disagreed with proposed "myths" that attempted to explain the unknowns of the world. This is still evident today, as many people disagree and agree with particular aspects of religion, science, etc. Depending on their own "philosophical ideas," people have each developed their own set of myths that appeal to them. These individual myths can be religion, can be science, can be art, can be ancient mythology, can be interpersonal relationships. These myths are the beliefs that help people answer some of the main philosophical questions. Such is the case in my favorite part of the chapter, when Sophie began to "make up a story" in order to explain where the snow went and why the sun rose up in the morning. That is when I realized that ANYONE can create a story. ANYONE can fantasize and ponder on why and how things work and exist. This is the beauty of our world: people all live in the same world, but when asked how that world works, they all come up with completely different explanations.

The Symbolizations of Art

The power of love is the most important feeling a human being can experience in his or her lifetime. Love is the ultimate tool that a person can use in order to express their creativity, feelings, and emotions. Love is the force that binds all humans together. And through this unity, people are inspired to create art. Art is the result of the thought process that a person experiences when he or she experiences love.


When a person creates art using man-made tools, telling a story or an idea or a belief of theirs, they unconsciously produce their masterpieces because of how much they love what they are trying to convey. The type of love that people express is not always "typical love." It is also the conviction that people have towards that which they regard highly in their life. Art is created in order to open a door for the audience into the life of the artist. The artists are trying to show the audience what they care about most; what they hold most dear to them; what they cannot live without; what has encouraged them to keep living; those things that they love.

Because love is one of the few universal ideas that people all over the world believe in, it enables them to create art that is able to be judged by anyone. Art forms are infinite: be it painting, sculpture, photography, or even forms like playing sports, playing an instrument, cooking a meal, directing a movie, producing a song, designing a sleek new gadget, etc. When people produce these pieces of art, they do so according to the particular image they have in their head. That image is a representative idea of what their affinity, their love, to what they want to create is.

Even when art takes many forms, the way in which it is displayed also sparks the power of love within the audience. When a person views and experiences that which is created by someone else's emotions, their own feelings and thoughts are attempted to be provoked into feeling the same way the artist felt when they created it. The love that inspired the artist to create is transposed to the audience using the physical, visual, hands-on piece of art. Once the audience experiences that feeling, they go on to recapture that feeling within their own art creation, even if the creation is completely different from the original creation. Like a network that never ends and never has a beginning point, love and its many derivatives flows across person to person through art, and never ceases to disappear. The reason that there are so many pieces of art in this world is because people are unique in expressing what they love. Individual people trying to express the same emotion usually results in different expressions from one another.

The universal power of love is experienced by mankind in individual creations of art. One belief that people together believe in is expressed in a million different ways.

Definition: 

Art is the physical method in which a person manifests their experience with Love.

A Video Of A Manifestation of Love Through Art

What If?: We Were All Professional Musicians!

Every day in Humanities class, we collectively listen to a piece of music. The genre varies completely from one another, and its usually from artists that we would never listen to on our own. After we listen to a particular piece, we usually take 10-15 minutes going over what we feel and think about as we hear the music being played. Some of us raise our hands and tell the class what we think the music is trying to convey as best as we can. Our responses are obviously not thought out with a professional musical mind as none of us has intensely studied music theory and the history of music, or at least I think no one has. I believe that our class can be split up into three different groups: people that hardly ever listen to music, people that listen to music on the radio for enjoyment but don't actually play an instrument, and people who both listen to music for "inspiration" and the like and attempt to or actually play instruments.

Experience wise, the people who listen to music for "inspiration" and play instruments probably have the most trained musical ear just because they have willingly surrounded themselves with that environment. They are most able to formulate thoughts about a particular piece that sound interesting and unique. Yes, the other two groups of kids do have the ability to think about music too, but the probability of thinking creatively whilst hearing a new piece of music is higher for the people who actively listen to music and apply their knowledge to an instrument.

Even so, none of us still have ever had professional musical instruction in which we attend a college of music, which is what I would like to now get to.

What if we were all professional musicians that just graduated from college with a degree in music. What if all of us had years and years of experience in both playing an instrument and actively listening to the millions of historical pieces of music literature. What if we had gathered experience writing essays and reports about a piece of music that our teacher had assigned us. What if music was the main focus of each of our lives, and we had already decided to make it our careers. Imagine how much our musical debates in Humanities class would change.

We would probably go on for HOURS about what a musical piece is trying to convey. It would hugely surpass our 10-15 minutes of going over what a piece means to us. It would also never have awkward silences when no one can think of something to say or when no one even wants to try. It would never have times in which one person says one thing and the rest of the people sometimes just repeat what the first person said in a different way. There would be the most out of this world theories as to why the music was created. We would hardly ever give up our argument, and we would effectively back it up with actual music theory rules, like crescendos and decrescendos and scherzandos and dynamics and articulations and repeats and allegrettos and a whole lot of other musical terms that I have never heard about and probably never will!

I would love to be part of a debate in which all of the people involved had different educations and experiences in music, utilizing both of them to actively discuss a piece of literature that they were hearing. They would most likely have heard almost every piece that we have heard and are going to hear in Humanities class anyways. It would be really fun watching and listening to what a group of 15-20 professional musicans can think of. It would be exciting trying to grasp what goes on in the brains of people that dedicate their lives to music as they hear pieces that they had never heard before. That is the epitome of a Humanities class.